The scene opens upon the Yawning Portal tavern in Waterdeep. Happily partaking of the local beverage selection, a troll makes it's way out of the well in the center of the tavern. As the majority of the patrons flee, our four adventurers and Durnon the owner take on the troll and live to tell the tale.

Impressed by the ragtag troupe's bravery, local adventuring celebrity Vulothampe Gedarm approaches the party and requests that they find his friend Floon who was last seen at the Skewered Dragon. The party makes their way to the establishment to learn that Floon was dragged off by 5 men. The waitress at the Skewered Dragon thinks these 5 men can be found skulking about in Candle Lane near a warehouse with a snake symbol.

Nonplussed, the party makes their way to Old Xoblob's shop, run by Xoblob, a hairless gnome with multiple eye tattoos. There they buy a few trinkets and Xoblob says he may have a job for them in the near future.

The adventurers find themselves in the wee hours of the day, freshly woken after a night's sleep at the Yawning Portal. Caye and Rastor manage to talk the kitchen help into giving them some breakfast ingredients to cook up. Caye does such a brilliant job of cooking that they are all graced with inspiration to face to e coming day.

The party makes their way to a warehouse, but not before Vryn stops to buy some seeds. Rastor plunges ahead with a scheme not realizing that the subjects he is trying to dupe are a band of Kenku, all carrying long bows. Things do not go well for poor Rastor.

The Kenku are dealt with and the warehouse searched where the party finds a mand by the name of Renaer Neverember tied in a filthy closet under the stairs. The Kenku seem to have taken the wrong man to "the boss". The party gives chase into the sewers.

The party enters the sewers and is met with resistance. I think they went back out of the sewers, bought some stuff and went back in and cleared the way down through a series of rooms to find Floon. A Dueregar was killed, some rotten kenku shot the party through slits in the walls, and they ended up in a room with a Mind Flayer who took a look at the party and went on his merry way, as his work was done here.

The party has a heck of a time trying to handle a small brain on legs that eventually renders Thrass' intellect to 1. They free Floon, guide Thrass and make their way out of the sewers.

Back at the Yawning Portal, Volo is thrilled to see his friend returned. Being "short on cash", instead of the promised gold, Volo offers the deed to a once-popular tavern known as Trollskull Manor. The party grudgingly agrees if Volo can point them to a cleric powerful enough to restore Thrass to her usual self.

Volo and Durnan point the party to the Holy Hand House where a cleric capable of casting Greater Restoration can be found. The party leaves Thrass in the care of Bonnie, the waitress at the Yawning Portal while they head to the Holy Hand House. The Halfling Cleric there says she will help if the party can return a loaned book to her.

The book was lost in a bet at the Watchful Eye tavern. A man named Gregor who has an interesting top hat with a stuffed pheasant on the top of it is now in possession of the book in question. The party sits and gambled and eventually gets the book (and the interesting hat which Vryn is enamored with)

The party returns the book, gets Thrass patched up and heads back to the Yawning Portal.

The party makes their way to their new tavern, Trollskull. A spectre seems to have taken residence in the place and has destroyed nearly everything it can. The spectre has set up traps consisting of pails of goo over doorways, one of which catches Vryn off guard to the delightof the spectre.

The party gets their deed signed over to them and then goes on a bit of a hike for Force Grey in order to talk to a monk on a hill about the recent violence in the city. The monk is enigmatic at best and the party leaves with more questions than answers. Force Grey seems pleased with the results at least.

We get back to Trollskull, and a weird snake-bird thing shows up. Vryn calls is a 'snird' but I think she just made that up. Snake things has a message for us. "Come see me in YP, DS." OK. The YP part was pretty easy, but the DS is anyone's guess.

There's a noise at the door. We open it and there's a talking cat that announces "Interested in joining the Emerald Enclave? Meet us at Falcon Mirror!" The cat runs away and takes any interest we had in that exchange with it.

Off the the Yawning Portal (the YP in the message for those slower members of the audience)

Durnon already has a band, some 2-man Ska band playing a bunch of instruments filling the room with a weird cacophony. He tells us the only DS he knows is Davel Starsong, a Zhentarim. Durnin tells us to tread carefully, so I go and get him to buy me a beer.

Davel wants us to go find out who has been killing elves on the docks for no pay, which we do because we aren't smart and we have nothing better to do at the moment.

At the docks we hear the killings have been happening around Millskuul Tavern on Ship Street. Here we meet Richard Charleston or 'Ruda' and Heldar, a drunk half elf who I bought a beer to make him a full-drunk half-elf.

We decide to walk Heldar home, using him as bait not remembering that I'm a half elf and would have done just fine as bait. We get him to his ship and of course a shadowy dark skinned elf pulls a stick out and points it at Heldar. I guess he was better bait.

Our new friend with the thing pointed at Heldar looks menacing and hasn't said a word. Turns out this stick thing makes a loud boom and then part of you disappears. Think it's called a pistol. Anyway, we fought for a bit and I nearly died which seems to be par for the course since I got to Waterdeep. A strange healer type guy showed up and got me back on my feet. He's Keth, and he says Durnon has sent him find Shiela, Lif's sister.

Have I told you about Lif? He's the former owner of our tavern, Trollskull. He's dead now but apparently death wasn't good enough for Lif, so he's a spectre that haunts Trollskull. Caye wants to keep him and I think that has the potential to be hilarious so I'm in.

ANYWAY, since we got beaten up pretty badly, we go back to Trollskull and rest, then we go with Keth to check on Shiela, but nobody knows where Shiela lives. We head to the market and start asking around. Talked to a merchant who told us where to find Shiela.

We show up at Shiela's and there's a couple of shady folks desperately trying not to get noticed. It's not working.

Keth seems pretty sketch even if he did heal me after that damned Drau nearly killed me.

Oh yeah, Shiela's deranged. A few cards short of a deck. Sharp as a marble. Forgot to pay the Brain Guild. You get the picture.

Keth found something at Shiela's and disappeared before we could figure out what was going on. Odd, but not out of bounds for expected Keth behavior. We didn't manage to get much out of Shiela but we did blatantly steal her lockbox, which as the name implies, is locked.

Back to the Portal with the lockbox. And you'll never guess who didn't send Keth to check on Shiela. Or maybe you will. It was Durnon, who has no idea who Keth is. Vryn describes Keth to Durnon as 'kinda pink and squishy with no scales and a little creepy' Vryn then goes into the Shiela encounter with Durnon, shows him the lockbox and asks for help with it.

The box is supposed to contain the proof that Lif had uncovered regarding Trollskull shortly before he was murdered. Durnon opens it for us. It contains a key. yay. We buy rooms for a few nights at the YP so we dont have to deal with Lif for a while.

When we finally do get back to Trollskull, I manage to persuade Lif to show me where the key goes. Lif takes us to the second floor and vanishes. Nice going, Lif. There's nothing keyhole-shaped in this room. Just some shredded books. Thanks Lif. Vryun finds a floorboard out of place, then find a bigger lockbox. It doesn't appear to be trapped. I put the key in the box and start to turn.

I hear a noise while turning the key so I dodge out of the way of any potential traps. Nothing happens. Vryn takes the key away from me and finishes turning the key with a few choice words for me which I don't feel like I deserved, but either way the box is open.

There's a bunch of gold inside and a stack of parchment wrapped in a cloth and tied up. Before we get into the papers there's a knock at the door.

There's four halflings at the door:

• Dasher Snobeetle
• Kelso Fiddlewick
• Danika Fiddlewick
• Brynn Hilltopple

Not so great according to Vryn who wouldn't know a deal if it smacked her in the face. It's non-guild work so even if we did save money and the results weren't bad the guild would probably burn the place down anyway. These halflings are related to the HalfPint Tavern ("Small Glasses, Full Taste") which is run by the ShardShunners which is some sort of halfling cult or some mess.

Vryn sends the halflings away while she stares daggers at me for trying to save a coin.

Thrass is angry and she's waving documents. This cannot possibly be good. Apparently our four halfling friends were sent to kill us, not help us. I hate it when Vryn is right.

One of the documents found in Lif's box is a masonry contract for work on Trollskull. Apparently Lif was unhappy with the work, saying it was "unprofessional and unbecoming of guild standards." According to the documents, there is an easy way into the basement of Trollskull that anyone with this information would be able to use to their advantage. The kill contract is signed "FJ". The guild mason in question is Johann Freehammer, so this definitely won't get confusing.

We head to the only information brokers we have access to: The Yawning Portal. Bonus: They also have ale.

Durnon knows nothing of an FJ. Davel knows nothing of an FJ. Scuttlebutt in the tavern is all about the recent rise in violence in the city. Our recent trek through the sewers is even brought up, and not by us for once. Ale consumed, some information gained, it's a good end to the day.

Caye found his way into the Portal's kitchen. We may need help getting him to leave.

Next day we head to the Mason's Guild. I manage to talk our way into getting a copy of Johan Freehammer's work contract for Trollskull. There's a refund request that hasn't been fulfilled in it. Apparently Lif was unhappy with the fact that the basement was accessible from the outside. Johan denies the complaint. The record ends with the line "Waiting for contact from Lif."

Time to talk to Freehammer. a gnome leads us to the higher floors. Apparently Freehammer has done well for himself. The gnome tells us that Freehammer is on his way to the top of the guild.

Did I mention that Thrass was angry? Well, it pays off here in Johan's office. Suddenly he's spilling his guts about shoddy work done to basements all across Waterdeep, making a sort of thief's highway from building to building.

Johan also sheds some light on 'FJ', who put the hit out on us. His name is Fritz Johmann, and apparently if you say that name outside the guild you will attract attention you don't want. I suddenly have a strong desire to write a song about this fellow, but I'll hold that back for now.

In stark defiance of the bit of wisdom that was handed to us just now, we all make for the market and start asking around about Fritz.I also had made a bunch of promises to my fellow tavern owners, so I set about buying a dress for Vryn, a dagger for Thrass and some bacon for Caye.

We ended up at Xoblob's (see the first entry in this journal) as he said he might have work for us at some point and there are things that we want that he might have.

Vryn wants something that can glow. Xob has a leather belt that glows blue. I wasn't paying attention but apparently it has a rose that glows blue until it's taken out and only with 5 other flowers does it show it's true beauty. I don't know sounds suspect to me, but Vryn buys it. It illuminates nothing so Vryn uses it as a glow stick.

Oh, the belt is aptly named 'Belt'. Somehow this was important.

Xob says Fritz lives outside Waterdeep and advises us to "let him find you". Not ominous at all.

Thrass distracted Xob and on impulse I stole a septum piercing that bestows Orc tucks and a pot of horse glue that is clearly labelled "NOT FOOD, SERIOUSLY". Surely these things will come in handy at some point?

Back at Trollskull, I distribute the gifts I bought at the market. I'm taking the first watch as undoubtedly there is trouble headed our way.

A knock at the door. There's a cloaked figure outside. Oh hey it's Keth. This night is off to a great start.

In news that will shock nobody, Keth is an agent of Fritz Johmann, but our pal Fritz is a fickle bitch. Now he doesn't just want us dead, he wants Keth dead as well. Apparently Keth was too slow and couldn't prevent us from getting Shiela's lockbox. The documents implicate Johmann in Lif's death. I'm definitely writing that song.

Apparently our halfling friends are all were-rats and there's a 100% chance that we will see them tonight. Keth would like to take Dasher Snobeetle alive if at all possible. Thrass, with Caye and Vryn's help melts down some of Thrass' silver and make 6 silver tipped arrows.

The attack commences. Keth shoots beams of ice at one of the thugs. Maybe he's not a cleric after all. We managed to capture Kelso Fiddlewick.

Well, we are alive, we have a couple of captives, and then there's Keth. Fritz Johmann paid Keth to keep an eye on us as we looked into Lif's death and prevent us from finding anything linked to Johmann, Lif's death, and the series of tunnels beneath Waterdeep.

Caye and I go downstairs to see where out were-rat friend came in. We are immediately attacked by 3 swarms of rats. Fuck rats, we leave the basement. This seems like a job for another day, just like the bat swarms in the attic. What a great manor we own.

Keth says he failed and now Johmann wants him dead too. Keth came to us out of self-preservation. At this point anything that comes out of Keth's mouth is suspect, but his story has the right shape to it even if we can't see that other side. I think I might be able to do something about that.

To that end, when everyone goes upstairs to question the captives, I stay downstairs and keep an eye out on the street for more friends. I've learned a bit of a mind-reading spell recently but it's not the most subtle thing to cast. I bide my time and make sure nobody else is coming down the alley.

I cast my spell and point it at Keth. I'm looking for a location on Fritz. Instant headache. Keth has some type of magic I don't recognize and apparently he's used it to mask his own brain as I get next to nothing from the spell. Later I made a second attempt and get more of the same but Keth saw me that time and got all huffy as he left. For a pair of successful casts of the most powerful magic I know, I come away empty handed. It's pretty frustrating.

We all go to sleep after the fun of the previous night. Thrass remains awake and starts angry cleaning. This is all for naught, as we are all woken by a large explosion outside in the alley.

There are eleven bodies laying in the street. There's a gnome clutching a dagger with some dried gunk on it that turns out to be sewer residue. Also, there's a female gnome, two cloaked bodies with Zhentarim tattoos, four halflings, and three what we shall call 'miscellaneous' bodies.

I go talk to Fala Lefaliir who runs the Correllan's Crown in the alley by the tavern. She says she was watering her plants on the second floor and saw some sort of puppet thing take something off of the dead gnome's body after the explosion.

Two city watchmen take charge of the scene and block off the alleyway with guards. Ther's a short one anf a tall one. The tall one is named Barnabus Blastwind. The short one has a symbol of the Order of Magis and Protectors.

Vryn turns into a cat. She heads outside and overhears a kid telling the guards that Thrass took a pouch of gems off one of the bodies. The guards wander off but the kid ha something in his hands. I investigate.

Kid found this bracelet thing with three beads on it, one bead is broken. Says he found it in a rain barrel.

I ask the kid if he can read the pot I'm holding in my hand. He recognizes the word "food" on the side of my "NOT FOOD, SERIOUSLY" horse glue. I give the kid the "food" in exchange for the bracelet.

I'm sick of everything at this point so for something to do, I sit down in the middle of the street and start to identify this thing. Of course the gods throw the two guardsmen my way instead of anyone useful.

So now these two guards know who I am and that I have some 'thing'. This never works out in my favor but at least I'm not in a cell so I have that going for me.

So after the explosion and Rastor was too busy fussing with his new necklace, and Caye was doing something, probably trying to make this heap look like it has a kitchen. Such a waste of time, should use Rastor's necklace to burn this place down...

Anyways Thrass and I snuck out the second story, we were SO good at sneaking none of the guards noticed us!

I wanted to go ask Lady Vajra if she knew anything that would be like a puppet person, we heard someone saw this weird thing run off to the Bent Nail. Vajra was actually a lot of help, she said it was probably something called a Nimblewright, but like there's not a lot of them in the city so she suggested we go talk to someone at the temple of gond. She's so nice, I can't believe she knows my dad, she seems way too cool to deal with someone as lame as him.

She also asked us to run another errand for her! I think she might actually think that we're not total screw ups. But I think tomorrow we're gonna go check out the harbor and see what's out there, I guess there's some beast that's scaring people. I hope its a dragonturtle! I haven't seen one up close before, and they're SO cool.

But anyways after that Thrass needed to go talk to the guards, because Rastor was a dick and kind of made it seem like Thrass did something wrong. Which she totally didn't.

But we met with the guard captain, and he seemed pretty nice, he just asked us a few questions and then let us go. Oh! And Thrass she's so nice, she gave the guard captain a donation to the watch, for being so nice and helpful.

❤ ❤ Vryn

PS Rastor be nice!

We head down to the harbor. Lysheria Malfuria, who even has a name that is suspect, has had a run-in with the supposed beast and is bragging about it. Caye approaches him. The story goes like this:

• was out in the harbor doing some evening business
• was around the haunted wreck of the Neverluster
• hair stood on end, knew they were in danger
• looked around the side of the boat and saw a massive creature
• an eye poked up, and it said something to him
• was so engraged with the idea that it had treasure that he had to get away from it
• the creature was so terrified of him it didn't dare attack

So obviously Lysheria, if that is their real name, is full of crap and the meat of the story doesn't even make sense. Engraged? However, I wish I could say this was the oddest person I met since I got to Waterdeep.

I'm reluctant to chase this down, but we end up renting a rowboat for way too much money and Caye rows us out to the harbor. There's a large shark that can talk. I know it can talk because it yells "FRESH MEAT" and attacks the boat. Vryn spots an underwater cave and the boat isn't going to hold up against our new shark friend so I guess it's cave or nothing?

So this cave is full of treasure! dragon. Finally some luck! Nope, no luck at all.

So the dragon, Zelifarn, has a brother named Zymmirth whose hoarde was in a mountain, but the dwarves got him with the help of a hag and a necromancer. Zymmirth is now in some dungeon somewhere.

Vryn is about to come unglued. There's a dragon. She's all but offered her first born to it at this point. Now we have to go to some floating carnival called the Maiden's Fair, just because the dragon wants things from it and Vryn yessed her way right past the idea of compensation.

And of course the dragon shakes us down as we go to leave the cave. The dragon occupies the shark outside for all of a couple of seconds while we try to make our escape.

We get back to Force Grey's headquarters and tell Varja about the dragon and Obliteros the shark hag that wanted to east us.

Varja says the explosion's target was a deep gnome named Dalakhar. Nobody knows why he was targeted specifically, he usually travels in underground circles. He has worked for the previous open lord of Waterdeep, Dagalt Neverember. Apparently he was coming to see us when he exploded.

Varja thinks the city watch's investigation isn't going all that well.

Vryn mentions the puppet that Fala saw in the alley after the explosion. Varja suggest we try the Temple of Gond, as it's most likely a nimblewright, a clockwork creature, but it doesn't make sense that it would be used as an assassin.

Some workers have finally showed up to work on Trollskull. They were paid with the money we found in Lif's lockbox. They tell us they can't fix the basement because there's a load of rats down there. We head down to deal with the problem and almost die again.

I've written a song about Fritz Johmann, our publicity-hating friend. Some day soon I'm going to go out near one of the busier gates and try to sell it to an unwitting bard passing into the city. This is just a simple song about a guy who happens to be named Fritz. He's not a great guy. Once this one starts circling I'll work on song number two which will be slightly more accurate and slightly more sinister.

Thrass is back from whatever mission she was on. If we run into a hoarde of kids with no fingers maybe they can tell us what she was up to.

So off we go to the Temple of Gond to see if we can find some information on our puppet bombardier. As soon as we reach the place, a creature on the roof throws a small metal object at us and then runs away shortly thereafter. The object turns out to be a metal sparrow.

Inside we are met by Priestess Valetta, Gondians deal in clockwork things as part of their religion. The sparrow-thrower on the roof turns out to be Nimmblewright named Nim. She takes us upstairs to meet it.

I show Nim the necklace of fireballs that was at the crime scene. Nim is uninterested and has not seen it before. Nim mentions something about another nimblewright and Valetta reacts in shock. It turns out that Nim has built another nimblewright to stave off loneliness. It ran away as soon as it was activated and Nim just accepted this as the natural order of things. Caye tells Nim about the explosion ad this other nimblewright but Nim doesn't know where it is anymore.

Valetta hands us a tiny hand-sized umbrella. Surely we are all saved now.

The umbrella is a nimblewright detector. Pull the little trigger and if there is a nimblewright nearby the umbrella spins for as long as you hold the trigger. The temple will reward us for this wayward nimblewright's destruction

Might as well start looking at the Maiden's Fair.

There are a few folks and brightly dressed workers at the fair. Vryn pulls out the detector and unbelievably it started spinning. I did not see that coming.

We buy some things and play some games. There's a game called Hanging Towers that totally did not lure me in with the promise of a wonderous item. Said item turned out to be a staff of magical item finding. We totally did not waste a bunch of gold and time on this game with some bastard gnome turning himself invisible.

I'm also mostly convinced that since it's a magical item itself, it will just detect itself. However, it's in my possession now and maybe some day it will come in handy?

So there's a few fancy boats outside the carnival. After talking to some folks, one if not all of the boats belong to captain Zardoz Zord. Apparently he's pretty successful according to this carny we are talking to. He's also known to use nimblewrights for labor and as an attraction. We should talk to this person.

The boats are named:

• Eyecatcher (Definitely Zardoz Zord's boat)
• Hellraiser
• Heartbreaker

Meeting time. We head back and get rowed out to the Eyecatcher. There's a un-missable display of wealth being put on here. There's gold filigree everywhere, fancy chairs, and even the paneling is perfumed.

Our host is wearing purple. Our host is not wearing much purple. He has more rings than garments. I'm pretty sure the wine glass he is holding is covering more of him than the purple...whatever that garment is.

Captain Zord wants to know if we are from "House Gralhund" which since we have never heard of this we can convincingly say no. He says a nimblewright can be purchased for 150K gold pieces.

However, the ruse is somewhat up as he is aware of who we are. He's heard that we've had some adventures and is happy that we are giving Xanathar some trouble.

He has no new nimblewrights, all are accounted for. Our nimblewright is not here. He then goes on to claim credit for a bunch of old legends like slaying the dark queen in the underdark and more than one dragon.

Strange host aside, it is the best meal I've ever had. Caye seems intrigued and wants access to the kitchens.

Lif decided to wake me up in the middle of the night with a bucket of water. As a reult I got up late. There has been a knock at the door and another snake bird has delivered a piece of parchment.

Someone wants us to pick up some potions of mind reading from someone names Skeemo, then deliver them to the God Catcher statue in the castle ward an hour after sundown. Give her the potions, pocket the payment. Note is signed DS. Seems easy enough.

We pick up the potions from Skeemo, wander around the sewers and city most of the day trying to detect out nimblewright friend to no avail. Near sundown we head to the castle ward.

We pocket one of the potions hoping the hand-off person won't know how many there are supposed to be. I try to trickher into thinking someone's chasing me and we need to do the transaction in a hurry, trying to add to the confusion. None of it works and she pays me for only three of the four. I thought for sure I could persuade or confuse her into giving full payment. Maybe I'm not as clever as I think I am...

It's 8PM, Vryn is a cat, there's dogs walking around, and there's a nimblewright somewhere on the premises. Captain Zord said the Gralhunds have been looking for a nimblewright. I guess they found one, or maybe one found them?

We spend an hour trying to make a decision on what to do. Finally we haul ourselves over a wall. I did not manage to do it quietly, so since I'm already noticed I might as well make a show of it so the others can get inside. I stay on top of the wall and play a song trying to keep attention away from the others.

Suddenly, Keth...

...and some sort of shadow creatures in hot pursuit. I quickly inspire him and jump off the other side of the way. I head around the outside of the villa hoping to escape the shadow things.

I circle back after the shadow things don;t follow me. I think Caye eventually lets me in. Keth was hired by Davel Starsong to find someone named Urstul Floxin, a high ranking Zhentarim henchman.

Vryn finds a falcon that she vows to return for.

We make our way upstairs where there are three enemies in a fight with four Gralhund guards.

"The city watch is on their way!" yells lady Gralhund. there are 6 dead gralhund and 2 dead zhentarim, plus the 3 zhentarim fighting the remaining 4 guards. Plus there's Floxin trying to kick a door in. Behind the 4 guards are two noble looking people.

Caye walks up to Floxin and asks a question I didn't quite catch. He doesn't seem to get anywhere with it. I cast Bane on the zhentarim.

After a couple of Zhentarim fall, Floxin decides it's a good time to run away. I seem him headed down the stairs and cast hideous laughter on him, which somehow succeeds leaving him prone on the floor laughing. It's nice to finally get one right.

Thrass kicks in the door that Floxin was working on. There's a noble and some flying snakes in there. It's lord Gralhund.

Keth wants to know where "the stone" is. Lord Gralhund says the nimblewright has it. He does not know where it is. Usrtul Floxin tried to get the stone from Dalakar the gnome, but the nimbewright got it first. Floxin went crazy so they barricaded themselves in the villa.

Lord Gralhuns says the stone of galor is a creature that has been transformed into a stone. This creature knows where the dragon's hoarde is. He begs us not to tell his wife they had spoken.

The city watch show up. My favorite duo. Everyone leaves but I can't go downstairs because they know who I am.

Keth tries to make a distraction which is quite nice of him. One of the pair splits off and I do not manage to sneak by. They ask me a bunch of questions and I play it off like I do odd jobs for the Gralhunds.

Keth says he can be reached through a mane named Vincent Trench who runs the Tiger's Eye in Trollskull Alley.

Vryn says that Keth tastes funny. Apparently she bit him at the Gralhund's? So even more oddness around Keth apparently.

Caye gets his kitchen upgrade. We now have a Standard Kitchen.

We get another Snird note:

Friends of Davil,
I would like to know more about what happened at Gralhund Villa. If you can spare the time. meet me at Ahgharion's statue in the City of the Dead at highsun tomorrow. You will be paid generously for your time and trouble.
- Istrid Horn

We know Horn is associated with the Zhentarim. We go back to Gralhund to see what we can find. We get 75gp for our troubles but nothing useful beyond that.

Walked around the city with the detector and found nothing. At the appropriate time we head for the statue. After trying to vet her for trouble we make contact. She is the master of coin for the Zhentarim. She gives us a bunch of cash for information on what happened at Gralhund. She's been hiding since Davel was picked up by the city watch at the Yawning Portal. Floxin works for the head of the Zhentarim and wasn't sent by her or Davel.

She pays for a room at Trollskull so she can lay low. Wait until she sees how much trouble flows our way there.

Vryn gets a brain message from Vaja asking us to keep an eye on one Meloon Wardragon at the Yawning Portal. We head back to Trollskull. Vryn goes into cleaning mode in order to impress our new tenant. Caye is trying to reason with Lif.

Off the the Yawning Portal. Get there around 6PM, place is busy. Free drink from Durnon for taking care of Shiela who is now safe. Ask about Meloon. Dunon says he's been acting weird. Meloon heads upstairs to his room about 8PM.

They say he's been keeping odd company, drinking a lot, going to bed early and waking up early. He'll leave the tavern occasionally. Goes into the Underdark as a guide to groups of adventurers. For a while he was coming back in worse and worse spirits. It's now been 2-3 weeks since Meloon has come back with anyone alive. I get a room for the night to try to keep tabs on him but nothing happens.

The next day I try my mind reading spell again. This time on Meloon. I pick up that he's frustrated over his axe, Azure Edge. I've only heard stories of this axe. I've heard that it's an intelligent magical battleaxe. The rest of the crew shows up around mid morning.

A party of adventurers that look much weaker than us approach him about an Underdark trip. Money changes hands and it looks like they have a guide. Vryn stops them on their way out. They've heard a rumor that one of the keys to get into the dragon's hoarde is in the Underdark. They say it's all ok because they have a map. Said map looks like a 4 year old dwarf child made it. These people are clearly idiots and deserve whatever fate is awaiting them down there. Vryn asked Durnon if he thought we should go into the Underdark and Durnon nearly wet himself laughing. Pretty sure that's a no.

Meloon goes to bed at 8PM again. We go home again

Meloon heads into the Underdark with his charges. I'm pretty sure we aren't going to see those folks again. They should have heeded Vryn's advice, but I get it. Sometimes you just gotta try, even if the evidence in front of you says you aren't going to succeed. They will probably be as successful as I am most of the time, which isn't very.

Durnon tells us that he heard the owners of Trollskull are being investigated because we have the stone of galor and are hiding it. That's not good, so I hope that's not common knowledge. He also mentions that he heard that someone spotted what sounds like a nimblewright down in the dock ward. We head there.

The detector goes nuts, I tried to cast a sugggestion on it and failed, so as usual, a fight ensued. I then proceeded to take a bunch of damage, cast hideous laughter and it shook the effect off a moment later like it was nothing. Vryn paralyzes it and I cast my mind reading spell yet again. It just has thoughts of Danger so I probe deeper. It's had no purpose until we found it so it has been in standby mode. I see a house in the dock ward, see the nimblewright handing over the stone to the woman from the house, and thoughts of having completed it's mission. We also found basically a map of the same place, so I probably wasted that spell. I'll likely regret that later.

we can't seem to get the thing to take a new master and it will kill us if we let it up so thankfully, Thrass ends it.

The city guard came by and apparently my "just honest citizens being accosted in the street" act offended them but they eventually let us by. I don't know why that act didn't work here, it's always worked before I got to Waterdeep. Maybe I'm the problem.

We rested for a bit, then headed to look at the lady's house on the map. In hindsight we probably should have rested first as I'm pretty drained, and I'm not the only one. But it should be ok right? We're only going to take a look around. We should have plenty of warning if there's an issue, right?

Missed warning number one: As we are walking down the alley toward the house, a sailor pops his head up and says "Looks like you know the value of some good muscle, do you need any more of it?" After the dragon shook us down for gold just to let us go do chores for it, I stopped carrying any serious coin with me and I'm pretty cheap to begin with. That plus the whole timing and delivery sounded like a scam or a way to have us do the work for whatever it was that they wanted so we passed.

Caye and I turn the last corner to the house and I go to lay low behind some boxes in the corner overlooking the front door. Oh hey there are 4 thugs and a dwarf missing a hand. They are beating on the door we wanted to look at. They see us.

Missed warning number two: The dwarf tells us to run along as there's nothing to see here. While trying to think up something persuasive to say I blurted out something along the lines of "what is it you want us to not see?" or something equally stupid. I bet you can't guess what comes next: a fight. Let me tell you, being a bard is useless when people wont converse.

I try to suggest to the dwarf that the stone is back in town. I fail. We fail to do any real harm to the thugs and the dwarf, and then a big ol Merrow shows up and makes things worse. At this point my magical abilities are tapped. In a rare moment of insight, I'm pretty sure this is all my fault for opening my mouth, and the others are just trying to keep each other alive.

Thrass and I throw money on the ground trying to buy off these thugs and turn the tide since they only seem to be interested in money.It doesn't seem to make a difference. Things just get worse.

I tell them to run and I'll try to hold the mob off. Maybe I'll be good enough at that to get them to safety. Maybe.

Vryn had other plans apparently and vine-whips me back toward her and the exit. We manage to run and get away.

I'm making a line straight to the Yawning Portal to drown myself in ale and sing as many angry songs as I can over the course of the night. There's got to be a way to use the talents I have better. Something's got to change and it probably needs to be me, so I'm going to give myself a night of pity and then see what comes next. Maybe tomorrow, we will have to wait and see.